There is only one Marilyn Monroe, but now two actresses are set to embody the bombshell on screen. It was announced this week at the Cannes Film Festival that Naomi Watts, 41, will play Monroe in a biopic based on author Joyce Carol Oates's controversial, fictionalized memoir, 2000's Blonde. The movie, also called Blonde, is reportedly slated to start filming in January.

Meanwhile, 29-year-old Michelle Williams is in active negotiations to play Monroe in a film directed by Simon Curtis, which focuses on the late screen legend's time spent in England while filming 1957's The Prince and the Showgirl with Laurence Olivier.

She's still the iconic image of the Hollywood blonde, even 47 years after her death – at age 36 – in 1962. With Monday marking what would have been the 83rd birthday of Marilyn Monroe, LIFE.com has posted a gallery of never-before-seen images of the then-rising star, taken in 1950 by Life photographer Ed Clark in Los Angeles's Griffith Park.

In what is likely her greatest role to date, Lindsay Lohan plays Marilyn Monroe between the sheets – literally – in the new spring fashion issue of New York magazine.

Recreating Monroe's legendary 1962 final photo shoot for Bert Stern with the veteran lensman himself, Lohan posed for the spread on Feb. 5 at the Hotel Bel-Air.

When it came to being nude before the camera, "I was comfortable with it," says Lohan, 21 (Monroe was 36 in 1962, the year she died) – though Lindsay does admit to having done "250 crunches" the night before the shoot.

The belongings of screen icon Marilyn Monroe, including hand-written notations about killing herself, her personally-annotated script of "Some Like It Hot" and the infamous form-fitting beaded dress she wore to sing "Happy Birthday, Mr. President" to John Kennedy in 1962, are going on the auction block in October. The dress, a $12,000 flesh-toned, beaded Jean Louis creation which Monroe was literally sewn into before cooing birthday wishes to Kennedy at Madison Square Garden in May 1962, is expected to command a price in the upper six figures and smash previous records for fashion or celebrity memorabilia at auction, said Christie's in New York, which is coordinating the sale.